Owen Pallett: Pole Star

photo from Polaris website

I realize that this post is a bit overdue; after all, it's been about a month since the wrap up of the first ever Polaris music prize contest. However, since an apology began the last post, and since apologies are an apparently overused form of introduction, I make no apologies for my (un)timeliness.

The Polaris is Canada's response to the Mercury Prize, a U.K. music award that recognizes the best British or Irish album of the year. The Mercury prides itself on being a counterpoint to the more mainstream Brit awards, and generally, the Mercury goes to artists just on the cusp of being a global name (i.e. past winners include Gomez, Badly Drawn Boy, The Arctic Monkeys etc...). While the cusp was kinder to some (Franz Ferdinand) than others (Anthony and the Johnsons), the award gets a lot of press and generates a healthy amount of worldwide sales and recognition for British artists.

This year, Steve Jordan, a former A&R music exec proposed a similar schtick for the Canadian music industry. Dubbed the Polaris, after the brilliant pole star, the organization's mission statement claims to celebrate and reward "creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics and experts." The debate about the short-list (and who was left on/off of it) raged in papers, blogs, radio shows etc. for months leading up to the final gala in Toronto; I have no desire to repeat it here. I'm more interested in the fact that there is room for an award show that claims to recognize what should be at the core of any "best of" award given at like events (i.e. The Juno's). In other words, we shouldn't need the Polaris.

Sadly, we do. The key line in teh Polaris mission statement is "regardless of sales history". Since Juno nominees acquire that distinction simply by achieving a certain number of sales, freeing the judgement criteria of that variable supposedly allows the Polaris to focus on what really matters: the music. Their point of difference is the difference between "best" and "best-selling". In theory. In practice, most of the ten nominees are also some of Canada's best selling (indy-ish) artists. So what's the point of an award that recognizes many of the very same artists that our other major award show does? In light of this question, the Polaris seems meant to square the conflicting desire between being hip and wininng an award (awww, the poor unhip Juno).

But before we completely write off an award show that wants to be the official police of Canada's hip music (imagine the RCMP in hipster outfits), the winner of the first ever Polaris prize throws a wrench in my rant. Owen Pallett is not one of Canada's best-selling artists (nor do I imagine he will be, even with the added recognition). He did not get nominated for a Juno (other than tangentially for his work with the Arcade Fire). He wasn't a household name in Canada. He's a guy with a violin who's interesting and different and who now represents what the Polaris has to strive for in future years.

More dear to my heart, he's also incredibly skilled with looping pedals. Check out this incredible video of a cover of Bloc Party's "This Modern Love" to see Pallett (and his pedals) in action. Then keep your ears open for where both Pallett and the Polaris prize go from here.

Cheating on Myself

I've been cheating on my own blog by posting significantly more frequently at midnightpoutine than here. My apologies to myself for my own infidelity.

Speaking of cheating, let's talk about the use of pre-recorded tracks at concerts (rock specifically). Pre-recorded tracks may be an extra drum track, some backing vocals, or an entire guitar melody. They are usually triggered by a synthesizer or computer either on or off-stage. It's common at pop shows and some might call this cheating, or inauthentic with respect to rock. I've covered off the reasons for this dismissal in my posts about the digital delay pedal. But, as much as we might like to believe in the fantasy that the sound we hear at concerts is being produced by the people we see at concerts; the reality is that many rock groups are now using pre-recorded tracks at their shows. This isn't to say that they aren't playing their own parts, but they certainly aren't playing ALL the parts LIVE. This is hardly an insight though, and as I've argued before, it's hardly cheating. What I am more interested in is what effects these extra tracks have on the band's performance.

I have been to three shows recently that made use of pre-recorded tracks. Emily Haines' solo show, Snow Patrol and Ratatat (links lead to reviews). Ratatat was the most obvious use of extra tracks as the band's signature hip hop beats were all played without a drummer. The keyboard player also triggered samples for additional guitar parts and other effects. Snow Patrol's use of extra tracks was more subtle, a backing drumbeat here, a sampled string section there. Emily Haines had a laptop which provided sparse accompaniment and she relied on it far less than the other bands.

3 realtively different bands, with widely different performance styles but all relying on a similar technological innovation. The most disappointing was Snow Patrol since the added tracks added little to the live show (other than a metronomic function); the show felt like a louder rendition of the album and not much else. Ratatat, on the other hand played with their sound and their technology to deliver a different experience. In the end, I think it's not the that a show needs to be live (as in every instrument played live) but that a show needs to be lived (as in a different entity than the recording).

Unfortunately, the horrible video footage I took of Ratatat doesn't do them, their music, or their technology justice. But, for anyone interested, click the image above, or the link below

Ratatat: Seventeen Years Vid